After tough Q3, Tuesday Morning expects loss in YTD results

Dallas - Decreases in both traffic and ticket resulted in a 3.2% comp decline for Tuesday Morning's third quarter.

Traffic fell 1.8% and average tickets was off 1.4% for the 852-unit closeout chain.

Total sales dipped 0.9% in net sales to $172.7 million for the three-month period, ended March 31.

Year to date sales declined 1.6% to $616.4 million, and comps declined 4.1%.

Tuesday Morning preliminary results today. The company will release its full results, for the third quarter and year-to-date, on April 23rd.

The retailer currently expects the loss per share for the quarter to be in the range of 9 cents to 11 cents per share. By comparison, the loss per share was 8 cents for the quarter a year ago.

Tuesday Morning is focused on its key marketing, e-commerce and real estate initiatives, said Kathleen Mason, president and ceo. "We believe these initiatives, particularly our new online platform, which is on track to go live this quarter, will begin to impact our business during our fourth fiscal quarter and increasingly in fiscal 2013."

She noted the company ended the quarter "with strong cash and inventory positions that were in line with our expectations."